Sunday, March 15, 2015

Comets Season Ends on a Very Sour Note

The Missouri Comets season came to an end today at the Independence Events Center today at the hands of the Baltimore Blast in the Eastern Conference Finals. Baltimore will now move on to take on the Monterrey Flash for the MASL title.

Missouri grabbed the only goal of the first quarter as Kiel Williams found the back of the net to give the Comets the lead late in the first quarter. The second quarter belonged to the Blast though as they scored three unanswered over the first 12 minutes of the quarter to take the lead 3-1. Alain Matingou with just over two and a half minutes left to cut the lead to 3-2. The Blast immediately responded though to make it 4-2 before John Sosa scored in the final second of the quarter to make it 4-3 Baltimore as the teams headed into the half time break.

In the third quarter, the Blast extended their lead to 5-3 early in the quarter on the power play. Missouri though finally got the offense going a bit and were able to level the game at 5-5 in the span of a couple minutes thanks to goals by Bryan Perez and Josh Gardner. Before the end of the quarter though the Blast had extended their lead to two again at 7-5 leaving the Comets with a hill to climb in the final quarter.

The fourth quarter saw the Comets try again and again to find the net but unable to as the Blast killed the clock off. In the final five minutes though things got crazy. Baltimore hit the Comets on the counter to make it 8-5. Missouri switched to the sixth attacker and Gardner almost immediately cut it to a two goal game at 8-6. Then a few minutes later, with a minute 15 left, Leo Gibson got a goal off a restart to cut the lead to one at 8-7. Unfortunately that's where the rally stopped. Twelve seconds after the goal, Baltimore made it 9-7 and then 11 seconds later finished off the scoring at 10-7 to the Blast.

Immediately after the goal, the Comets cool was collectively gone. Sosa picked up a red card for foul and abusive language to the referee. Then after believing he'd been fouled and not receiving a call, Brian Harris came in with dangerous tackle and picked himself up a red card with 12 seconds left to end the Comets season on an extremely sour note.

And unfortunately that wasn't the end of it as after the game ended, Andre Braithwaite did this to Pat Healey.

If not for how stunned I think most of the players were about it happening Braithwaite likely would have seen himself fighting the entire Blast team. And based on Josh Gardner's reaction (he was talking to Healey at the time) I don't think Braithwaite would have gotten a ton of support.

The team waiving him isn't a surprise at all based on the above video, a stupid move by the player. He'll likely also receive some sort of lengthy suspension from the league, if he's not outright banned from it for a while.

In the end though, Braithwaite's and the actions of other players at the end of the game ends a really amazing season very sourly.